The severe weather hit hard again, causing loss and familiar scenes. In Ano Glyfada, a 56-year-old woman tragically lost her life when a vehicle swept her away in the rushing waters. The roads couldn’t hold up; they became traps as the rain poured down, taking away any sense of safety.
A few meters away, another woman barely escaped. She tried to cross a road that had turned into a torrent, but two brave citizens jumped into the water and pulled her to safety. A kind act in the chaos, but it highlights a bigger issue: our infrastructure failed. In Astros Kynourias, a coast guard officer was swept away by a huge wave at the harbor, fell into the sea, hit his head, and drowned.
This scene is not new in Cyprus either.
Every heavy rain brings back the same images: roads like rivers, flooded neighborhoods, trapped drivers, and citizens wondering if they will be next. From Nicosia to Limassol and Larnaca, the question keeps coming back like a storm that won’t go away.
Nature does its part. The real question is whether we do ours. As long as we call rains “extreme phenomena” and don’t change our infrastructure, tragedies will keep happening. They don’t have to; they are just results of choices we’ve put off for years.
It’s important to note that the severe weather brought tons of debris down from the mountain to Glyfada, creating unprecedented situations, as Mayor Giorgos Papanikolaou pointed out. “What we experienced in recent hours has never happened before, neither to me nor to older Glyfadians,” he said, also offering his condolences to the family of the 56-year-old woman who lost her life in the rushing waters.
